'Our Physical Thearpy' .....

Greetings Everyone!

Ernie's out-patient physical therapy has begun!  Correction - 'our physical therapy' has begun.  And to think I thought my role would be to drive him there  - sit back and read a good book for an hour in the waiting room.

Not only did the physical therapist - Cartland - give Ernie homework - but I too was assigned homework.  Who would have thought?  At home, Ernie is to 'step-up' the flexing and stretching routine for each leg and increase his walking distance.

My homework - three times a day - is to massage Ernie's legs, manipulate his knee caps and apply intensive cold therapy! The physical therapist showed and instructed me on how to therapeutically massaging Ernie's legs and how to move his knee caps back and forth - up and down - left and right.  At first I was a bit hesitant - but I realized it was all for the good and learned something new.

After those demonstrations, I was taught how to apply intensive cold therapy (ICT) to each of Ernie's knees.  The process involves wrapping cold towels and flexible cold ice packs around each knee and leaving them in place for 20 minutes.  According to the physical therapist intensive cold therapy is needed 3 times a day to reach the deep muscles and tendons - which traditional icing does not do.  ICT is designed to reduce swelling and blood pooling more quickly. Oh yes - I cannot forget - as Ernie goes through ICT - I have to cover him with a blanket because he does get very cold.

Below the physical therapist - Cartland - takes Ernie through a routine of flexing and stretching.  Although Ernie appears to be taking it easy - he's focused on breathing techniques to get past the 'pain point' - I think he must be thinking of the rhyme '... smell the flowers (inhale) and blow out the candles (exhale).'

Near the end to the therapy session - electrodes are applied to each of Ernie's knees.  They are designed to emitted low electrical pulses to relax the muscles, breakup blood pooling and increase blood circulation.  The black/blue pads are Velcro straps that will hold the flexible cold ice packs in place around Ernie's knees.

Ernie is doing much better since our last blog.  The tiredness is going away - which means the iron pills (3 times a day) and high iron diet are doing their job.  The physical therapist is pleased that Ernie is ahead of schedule with flexing - the goal is for Ernie to have 100 degrees flexibility at 3 months.  Currently, Ernie can flex his right leg at 113 degrees and his left knee at 85 degrees.  By the end of PT - in May - he will have both knees flexing over 100 degrees - but he will need to continue working towards the range of 125-130 degrees.

In addition, Ernie is now walking short distances without his walker. He reached the point where he was carrying his walker as he walked rather, than pushing it along. He still has to use the walker for longer distances however, but we suspect he'll be using a cane soon.

Take care - and thank you for keeping us in your thoughts.